Category Archives: Favorite Cookie Recipes

A Rice Krispies Treat of A Different Sort

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Rice Krispies and rice flour make these cookies crisp as can be and light as a feather.
Rice Krispies and rice flour make these cookies crisp as can be and light as a feather.

Meet the more elegant and sophisticated Rice Krispies treat.

Sure, there are days for the winsome nostalgia of the marshmallowy, sticky-sweet squares we all grew up with.

But there’s also a time and place for wonderful “Toasted Rice Sables” that take the puffed rice cereal and turns it into airy, crumbly, and crispy-throughout cookies that are oh-so buttery and toasty tasting. They’re also gluten-free.

This clever cookie is from “What’s For Dessert” (Clarkson Potter, 2022), of which I received a review copy.

It was written by one of my favorite baking book authors, New York City-based Claire Saffitz, a best-selling cookbook author who hosts the cookbook YouTube series, “Dessert Person.”

Her desserts are winningly approachable, designed to entice but not to cause any undue stress in their making. Instead, they are doable and delightful.

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Double Chocolate Oriolos

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Chocolate plus more chocolate. Who can resist?
Chocolate plus more chocolate. Who can resist?

At this time of year, you can never have too many chocolate cookies.

I stand by that thought unequivocally.

While versions of this chocolate-frosted, chocolate cookie abound, these particular “Double Chocolate Oriolos” are more modest in size, making them a perfect treat to indulge in without overindulging.

The recipe is from “The Cookie Bible” (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt), of which I received a review copy, by legendary New York baker Rose Levy Beranbaum.

The collection includes recipes for cookies of every sort: drop, cut-out, bars, sandwiches, chocolate-dipped, and more.

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Triscuit Sandies

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When a cracker turns into a cookie.
When a cracker turns into a cookie.

A tisket, a tasket.

A Triscuit, a…cookie?

Yes, leave it to the zany minds behind Milk Bar to come up with crazy crunchy, brazenly buttery cookies made out of pulverized Triscuits.

“Triscuit Sandies” are just one of dozens and dozens of fabulously fun recipes in the new cookbook, “All About Cookies: A Milk Bar Baking Book” (Clarkson Potter), of which I received a review copy.

In the intro, Milk Bar owner Christina Tosi writes, “For those of you who think a cookie is just a cookie, and all cookie cookbooks are the same, welcome, my friend, to our crazy, amazing love affair with the most unsung hero of pastry. Bake a few batches with me, and I promise, you’ll never look at cookies the same way again.”

Indeed, these recipes are full of novel ingredients and approaches, such as “Cheeze-Grits” (tiny, crunchy, cheesy cookies made with corn grits, sharp cheddar and Pecorino), “Peach Shortcake Cookies” (loaded with dried peaches and real shortcake crumbles), “Lemon Poppy Ribbons” (glazed cookies filled with microwave-made lemon curd), and “Cookie Cake” (using cookie dough with favorite mix-ins to create an 8-inch cake).

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Reem’s Chocolate Chip-Tahini Cookies

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Chocolate chip cookies get an Arab twist with homemade halawa, sesame-like fudge, that gets folded into the dough and dotted on top.
Chocolate chip cookies get an Arab twist with homemade halawa, sesame-like fudge, that gets folded into the dough and dotted on top.

Growing up in Massachusetts with a mother forced to flee war in both Gaza and Lebanon, Reem Assil not only wears her fierce Palestinian and Syrian pride on her sleeve, but profoundly infuses it into her cooking and baking.

That’s why her new cookbook “Arabiyya” (Ten Speed Press), of which I received a review copy, is not merely a collection of more than 100 recipes that dive deeply into her Arab roots, but a testament to her hard-won battle to bring them to the forefront in all that she does.

The book’s title means “Arab woman.” And Assil exemplifies that inherent strength, never afraid to champion her Arab community at-large, starting in college, when she idealistically thought she could solve the issue of peace in the Middle East. When she realized that futility, she dropped out of school, and headed west to the Bay Area, were she became enthralled with its diversity and social consciousness.

It was here that she got the notion to start her own bakery, having grown up breaking bread at the table communally as the ultimate way to bring people together.

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Everything’s Coming Up Roses, Part II: The Bar Cookie

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White chocolate, freeze-dried strawberries, and dried rose petals spiff up these blondie-like bars.
White chocolate, freeze-dried strawberries, and dried rose petals spiff up these blondie-like bars.

She is the self-proclaimed “queen of easy-peasy baking.”

And Brooklyn-based recipe developer Jessie Sheehan’s latest cookbook certainly adds another jewel to that crown.

“Snackable Bakes” (Countryman Press), of which I received a review copy, is the type of cookbook that makes baking a treat on a whim not only doable but deliciously satisfying.

The book includes 100 no-nonsense recipes that are simple to follow, require limited equipment, and easy to put together. There’s no stressing over baking “Strawberry Sheet Cake,” “Luscious Lemon Possets,” “S’more Icebox Cake” or “Espresso Ganache Swirl No-Churn Ice Cream.”

I tried my hand at “Strawberry-n-Cream Bar Cookies,” a blondie-like bar cookie that’s flavored with freeze-dried strawberries and white chocolate chips.

Just for fun, I also added some dried rose petals to the dough because strawberries and rose go together nearly as well as peanut butter and chocolate, with the rose accentuating the lovely floral quality of ripe berries.

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